The application was filed with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment on Monday. Under Finnish law, permission of this kind requires the government’s consent

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HELSINKI, September 23. /TASS/. Swiss company Nord Stream 2 AG, a subsidiary of Gazprom, filed an application with the Finnish authorities earlier this week for permission to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Finland’s exclusive economic zone, Kaleva daily said on Friday night.

The application was filed with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment on Monday. Under Finnish law, permission of this kind requires the government’s consent.

Nord Stream 2 AG executives said that in Finland the procedure of obtaining the permission follows the procedure of assessing impact on the environment. The latter procedure was completed in July when the coordinating agency endorsed the ecological impact report as satisfactory.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Juha Sipila said his country continued viewing Nord Stream 2 only from the viewpoint of its compliance with ecological requirements, as the problem of construction of the pipeline meant the use of economic waters and the obtaining of ecological permission by the operator company.

Solution of these issues as moving ahead as scheduled, Sipila said.

He added in the meantime that the EU was to decide in its turn whether this pipeline conformed to the requirements of the EU energy union.

Nord Stream 2 is an international pipeline project designed to deliver Russian natural gas to European countries across the floor of the Baltic Sea. Forecasts suggest that while the domestic production of gas in Europe is likely to fall by 50% in the coming twenty years, the new pipeline will help meet the ever-growing demand for gas and increase the supplies by 55 billion cubic meters a year.

The route and structure of the new pipeline will mostly replicate the already operational Nord Stream pipeline. It will stretch across the economic zones and/or territorial waters of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.

The Swiss company Nord Stream 2 AG, which is fully owned by Gazprom at present, was set up to design the project, build and operate the new pipeline, the construction of which is to begin in 2018 and to finish at the end of 2019.